


More Life to Love

by Dragonflies_and_Katydids



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 05:11:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4007104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonflies_and_Katydids/pseuds/Dragonflies_and_Katydids
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It all goes to shit before Dorian can blink. One second they're facing the last of three grossly under-prepared Venatori, Bull calling out laughing compliments to Cassandra on some particularly impressive blow, and then one Venatori suddenly spawns ten more, reinforcements that weren't supposed to arrive for hours turning up far too early.</p><p>*******</p><p>Just a brief one-shot that popped into my head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Life to Love

**Author's Note:**

> ...for sullen-seeming Death may give  
>  More life to Love than is or ever was  
> In our low world, where yet 't is sweet to live.
> 
> Alfred Lord Tennyson, _Maud_  
>  *********  
> Banged out in an hour while riding in a car. I think I caught all my typos, but if not...sorry!

It all goes to shit before Dorian can blink. One second they're facing the last of three grossly under-prepared Venatori, Bull calling out laughing compliments to Cassandra on some particularly impressive blow, and then one Venatori suddenly spawns ten more, reinforcements that weren't supposed to arrive for hours turning up far too early.

 _Mortifyingly early,_ Dorian thinks with black humor. Mortifying for Leliana's spies, to be so misinformed, but also mortifying for Dorian and the others. Because death is suddenly looking far too likely, and their flesh will have all the time in the world to mortify.

Under all the noise of metal hitting metal, something behind Dorian catches his ear. He couldn't say what, but he's learned not to question his instincts in the middle of a fight, and he turns with ice already jumping from his fingers to catch the eleventh reinforcement solidly in the chest. A blow from Dorian's staff finishes the job, sending chunks of frozen blood and flesh everywhere. One piece of bloody ice lands on his lips, and he spits it away, stomach heaving, even as he spins back to the rest of the fight.

Just as he's learned to trust his instincts, he's learned to read a fight in an instant. Cassandra and the Inquisitor are holding their own to his left, while Bull has waded in among the enemy with the same lack of sense he always shows. Now he's shouting insults at the Venatori instead of compliments to Cassandra, but he's still laughing.

One of the Venatori tries to flank him, and Dorian reaches across the distance to call up the kind of unreasoning fear most people never know. The Venatori falls to his knees, arms over his head, too terrified to even scream, and certainly no danger to Bull for the next little while.

Unfortunately, the spell also draws some unwanted attention, and another of the Venatori looks around. There's no reading expression under the man's helm, but there's also no mistaking his intent as he rushes Dorian. A mind blast knocks him back, and draws attention from two of his companions.

"Shit," Dorian mutters, backing up a few quick steps. The others are occupied, at least three Venatori between him and the relative safety of a warrior to hide behind. Any warrior would do except that none of them are an option, and then Dorian doesn't have any more time to think.

He freezes the first Venatori, sends the second running away in a panic, and dodges the third's sword with a graceful sidestep he absently congratulates himself on. His next sidestep is significantly less graceful, and he trips over a fallen shield, going down hard to one knee.

A quick glance around the battlefield shows it little changed from the last time: Cassandra and the Inquisitor still engaged with a behemoth, Bull still surrounded. Very definitely surrounded, in fact: even as Dorian watches, the first Venatori he terrified lurches to his feet behind Bull and raises his sword. Surrounded by four other Venatori, it doesn't much matter if Bull is aware of the danger or not.

Dorian considers his options in the brief moment available, and finds none of them very promising. The Venatori he dodged is coming back around to finish what he started, and Dorian knows he can't make it back to his feet in time. Cassandra and the Inquisitor are still hard-pressed by the behemoth, and while they may be aware of what's happening elsewhere on the field, there's nothing they can do about it. Dorian doesn't have enough energy left for anything except one last barrier, and there's no way he can get close enough to Bull to cover both of them with it, not before that sword finds one of the chinks in Bull's armor.

It's the hardest decision he's made since he walked away from his parents' house. In some ways, though, it's also the easiest he's ever made in his life.

He flings out his hand and a single word, his magic following obediently to slam down around Bull just before the sword would have connected. A second later, the Venatori in front of Dorian finishes his own swing.

He thought his life was supposed to flash before his eyes in that last instant, and while there are plenty of parts he's just as happy not to re-live, he wouldn't mind one last view of Bull's smile. Not the wild, reckless smile he's wearing right now, but the soft slow one Dorian's only ever seen in private, the smile that says all the things that would terrify him if Bull ever actually put them into words.

Instead of that private smile, all he can see is the armored chest of the Venatori who stabbed him, and the endless sand of the Wastes, and the night sky spreading out above them. Then darkness swallows the stars, and pain swallows everything else.

###

Dorian wakes to the bitter astringency of elfroot, and Cassandra's worried frown. His dazed mind scrambles to make sense of his last memories, that moment of decision between his life and Bull's, and he feels like he's just been stabbed again. If he's alive, then Bull is not. Rolling to the side, he vomits, his abused stomach muscles protesting this new torture.

The rest of his body joins the protest as someone grabs him and shakes him, hard. His neck snaps forward and back, and his stomach threatens to pick up where it left off, all over this new attacker if necessary. A voice penetrates his misery, cursing him with the sort of deep conviction Dorian's never heard outside of a Chantry.

"... _stupid_ fucking _'Vint_ , if you _ever_ do that again-"

The exact nature of those consequences is lost as Cassandra says sharply, "Bull!" and Dorian finds himself being squeezed as hard as he was being shaken a second ago. His mind balks, confused, trying to put everything together but still reeling from the after-effects of a sword through his guts. Nothing makes sense, except...

It hurts to struggle, but since it also hurts to hold still, Dorian ignores the pain and pushes against the breastplate currently trying to flatten his nose to his cheekbone. He peers blearily up at Bull and informs him, "You're not supposed to be dead."

Bull swells up in rage. "I'm not fucking dead, and you're not supposed to just sit around and wait while someone sticks a fucking sword in your chest-"

"Shhhh," Dorian says, patting Bull's cheek. Only, his hand doesn't quite do what he wants, so he ends up tapping his fingers against Bull's nose and lips instead.

Bull grabs his hand and rubs at it, scrubbing away the vitaar Dorian had forgotten about until that moment. He doesn't try to touch Bull's face again, just repeats, "Shhhh."

"Don't shush me," Bull says, still angry. "What the _fuck_ were you thinking?"

"Only had enough for one," Dorian says. It hurts to talk, like someone ripped his chest open and took something sharp to the inside.

Giggling, it turns out, also hurts.

And makes Bull even madder. His face turns a strange greyish-purple, the parts Dorian can see under the vitaar, and he's actually speechless for a moment.

When he regains his voice, he makes up for that brief silence by nearly yelling, "What the _fuck_ were you _thinking_?"

"You said that already," Dorian points out, in what he thinks is a perfectly reasonable tone. Short as the sentence is, he has to take a deep breath after it, then immediately decides that deep breaths are something he should avoid from now on when it sends him into a coughing fit that brings tears to his eyes.

There's blood in his mouth when the coughing has abated, and he turns his head away to spit it out on the ground. Bull's arm tightens convulsively, and he reaches for a healing potion.

"Fine. 'M fine," Dorian says, his brain finally starting to wake up. "Just what's left over. Got to get it out."

"You wouldn't have to get anything out if you'd put up a fucking barrier," Bull says.

"I did," Dorian answers, and reaches up to touch Bull's breastplate, right over the scar he knows is there. The arrow that made that scar was meant for Dorian, months ago when Bull still called him 'Vint like it was an insult and not an endearment. "Sometimes I get to be stupidly heroic, too." Dorian takes a quick, shallow breath before he adds with a smile, "You can't steal the glory every time, amatus."

Bull is speechless again, which would officially double the number of times Dorian's seen him thus.

Then the Inquisitor calls something to them, and Bull's face snaps back to its usual pleasant mask.

"Duty calls," Dorian says. "Or at least, looting does." He pats Bull's shoulder through the armor and tries to stand, only to have Bull pick him up as if he weighs nothing. Thankfully for his dignity, Bull doesn't carry him more than a few feet: just far enough to put him down on one of the few unsmashed crates left in the Venatori camp.

Bull starts to move away, then turns back. "Don't think for a second that I'm done with you," he says. "We're going to finish this conversation later." Dorian knows he means it to sound threatening, but he's smiling that private smile, and Dorian isn't afraid.

**Author's Note:**

> When I sat down to write this, it was supposed to end at that scene break. Yes, with Dorian dead (I would have tagged it accordingly, of course). So not only am I bad at cynical, I'm also terrible at tragedy. Oh well.


End file.
